I've had the Archos 5 160 and 250 GB players and really like the fact that they have large capacities. My 160's battery is dying and I'm going to try and replace it but in case it doesn't work, is there anything out there (not necessarily an Archos) that is good and has a large capacity. Most everything I see now is 8 or 16 gig flash which won't hold many movies. Some have microSD slots but that still may only take you up another 32GB. Any suggestions?

For an expensive and probably impractical solution you could use a Samsung Galaxy Note with USB on-the-go to connect an external hard drive. This would work with any USB OTG enabled device so check if you already have one.

For a more practical solution IMHO you should look at ultrabooks, netbooks and perhaps tablets. If it is small enough to fit in a pocket it's not large enough for comfortable video. If it does not have a base you'll be holding it in your hand for 2 hours while the movie runs through. Your also not really winning on portability since most tablets these days are in the same ballpark for weight as those 5_inchers and you'll often have a bag of some sort if you are away for a longer stretch so they dont need to fit in a pocket.

My point is that f you are away from your main setup for long enough that you will be watching videos, then perhaps it'd be a good idea to bring some heavier firepower. The D2 is much too small.

The Galaxy Player 5.0 screen is big enough for video, but the D2 is certainly not...lol. And my Zenus case for the 5.0 has a kickstand. Of course, my Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is better for video....but it's not pocketable unless you're wearing big loose fitting pants(maybe cargo pants with the thigh pockets?)

The Cowon A5 is on the way. It's got a max of 64gb internal storage, can use one of those 64gb or 128gb sdxc cards, and has ONE THING an Archos has not and will not EVER have: EXCELLENT SQ!!!

I looked at the A5 thread on iaudiophile and didn't see any indication that it will have a full sized sdhc/sdxc slot. That seems pretty dumb to me, a large device having just a micro slot (most android tablets make the same error). But anyway the largest micro card is 64gb for now.

I looked at the A5 thread on iaudiophile and didn't see any indication that it will have a full sized sdhc/sdxc slot. That seems pretty dumb to me, a large device having just a micro slot (most android tablets make the same error). But anyway the largest micro card is 64gb for now.

That's not an error, it's compatibility for all devices. I only own 1 full sized sdhc card now,...no loss. Especially with the price of micro sdhc cards being so low nowadays.

That's not an error, it's compatibility for all devices. I only own 1 full sized sdhc card now,...no loss. Especially with the price of micro sdhc cards being so low nowadays.

Not sure what you mean about compatibility. Micro cards come with adapters that let you use them in full sized slots, so full sized slots are compatible with all devices, while micro slots are only compatible with micro devices. Micro slots make sense in tiny devices (sacrifice compatibility for size), but using a micro slot in a full sized device is an error because micro slots are NOT compatible with all devices. Micro 32gb cards are now (after a long time costing more) at cost parity with full size, micro 64gb cards cost 2x more than full size, and micro 128gb doesn't exist yet and probably won't for a while. But I expect we will see 256gb full sized cards pretty soon.

But most portable devices these days aren't coming with full sized slots anymore, only micro-slots. That's what The Darkside was referring to.

Most larger devices like cameras, camcorders, netbook and laptop computers, in-dash car music players (that have sd at all), audio recorders, etc. have full sized slots. Cell phones and small portable audio players have micro slots for size reasons. What I don't understand is why large android tablets tend to use micro slots. If you mean it makes more sense for consumers to buy micro cards than full sized cards because they fit in more devices, then sure, that's fine, but it should be a consumer choice (when feasible) rather than something imposed by the device manufacturer.

In practice I don't tend to swap cards between devices very much and I suspect that's pretty typical of users. I have a 16gb card in my (Cowon) d2, a 4gb card in my camera, and so forth, and each card tends to stay with its device pretty much all the time. If I wanted a 64gb card for my d2 today, I'd certainly buy a full sized one for $60 rather than a micro one for $110, because I don't foresee wanting 64gb in a micro device within the next few months, and even if I did, I'd want separate cards rather than swapping one around. By the time I want a 64gb micro card, they will probably be $50 or less, so I end up getting both cards for the $$$ that it would take to get just the micro card today. But if the micro card cost $65 while the full size card cost $60, then of course I'd buy the micro card.

In practice the 16gb card in my d2 is mostly full of old podcasts I'm not likely to suddenly want to listen to, so I could free up card space by deleting them (they are still on my computer if I wanted them again) to put more music there. If I really wanted more space and 32gb wasn't enough, then 64gb probably isn't enough either and I'd buy a 128gb card (now about $165) and that just doesn't exist in the micro format (the reason for my earlier comment about the a5).

Devices are ALL moving to micro sd card slots. Even my new camera,...full sized is almost obsolete. And a micro sd card CAN be used in a full sized slot, a full sized card ISN'T backwards compatible. That was what I was referring to. The full sized cards are slowly being phased out,...

Hmm, newegg currently only shows 3 camera models that use microsd vs. dozens that use full size, but I can see smaller cameras moving toward micro. Bigger cameras should stay with full size cards since lots of people want to shoot HD video with them. That burns massive amounts of space, so users often want the maximum possible capacity. Lexar just announced a 256GB CF card and they have been shipping 128GB SDXC for about a year. It will be a while before we see micro cards in such capacities, and when that does happen the full sized cards will hold even more.

I do tend to think for most audio users, if 64gb is not enough then no amount is enough, so they will want to use cheap bulk storage (hard drives) rather than flash, and maybe we've reached the era where full size slots in audio players don't matter any more. A big Android tablet is a reasonable HD movie playback device though, and 128gb is just a couple of dozen DVD's, not a big number, so limiting them to micro format seems unnecessarily restrictive.